I tried watching it once (not having seen any Dr. Who episodes since the Sylvester McCoy era) and it just didn’t click for me. I didn’t know who these people were or why I was supposed to care about them.
@hogarth, you’d probably like it better to watch the stuff with Thirteen & “the fam.” It’s pretty Doctory, a bit like old Who, & plays with the Doctor suddenly being a woman, which is fun. I think Thirteen’s personality is more like Nine’s or even Eleven’s than like Seven’s, but it might work for you.
The first episode of Doctor Who that I watched and which pulled me into the series was The Empty Child. The episode is equally chilling and heartwarming and introduces a fascinating character, Captain Jack Harkness. I didn’t and still don’t know a lot of Who backstory. I backtracked and started watching the Eccleston season from episode 1 at some point after that. He’s still my favorite Doctor.
And that will lead you down the rabbit hole to Torchwood, which is Doctor Who with furious sex.
I would say morally gray Doctor Who with furious sex, but yes. 
It’s not a typical episode where the doctor only has a cameo and I was wandering who these people were too when I watched it.
As to the question, I would start with Nu Who as Eccleston’s doctor has a lot of explaining to do to Rose in the beginning which catches the new viewers up.
That’s worth noting, for anyone looking to jump into the old show: there were two actors named Baker who played The Doctor. Tom Baker was the Fourth Doctor; his episodes are for the most part pretty enjoyable. Colin Baker was the Sixth Doctor. His episodes are for the most part…not as enjoyable.
Incidentally, there was also a writer named Bob Baker, and a husband-wife writing team named Pip and Jane Baker. Lots of Bakers involved in old-school Who.
In answer to the question, I would agree that starting with Christopher Eccleston is the best approach. It was deliberately designed to be friendly to newcomers–it does not assume any knowledge of the earlier series–and the stories are pretty good. Eccleston isn’t as flashy as some of his successors would be, but I think his Doctor is underrated. I wish he had stayed on longer, but he had his reasons for leaving.
I started with the first season of the relaunch and would always recommend that. I’ve been doing an in-order rewatch lately (both Who and Torchwood, but I’m skipping the Sarah Jane Adventures this time) and some things are clearer than ever.
In Eccleston’s sole season, I still think there was some hesitation to tie it narratively to the earlier series. The pilot episode features a character who’s a Doctor obsessive, follwing his appearances throughout history…but every photo he has of the Doctor is of Eccleston. As if the BBC figured it would require too much heavy lifting to explain, yeah, this is the same guy but he used to be a senior citizen who dressed like Liberace and had Bea Arthur’s hair. I think School Reunion in Tennant’s first season is when they went all-in on “yes, this is one saga” because that’s the first appearance of a Classic Who companion.
The precision with which all the pieces fall into place for the fourth season climax is truly staggering. It’s like RTD had his first four series planned out in advance, including the dynamics of each companion, the order in which the villains made their appearances, and even what the spinoffs would entail, long before that was even feasible. And then over the course of five specials to round out Tennant’s tenure, he largely failed to land it. I liked 10’s final arc somewhat better this year, but it’s still filled with incomprehensible plotting and a ton of story threads that were immediately abandoned.
At any rate, I recommend either Rose or The Eleventh Hour as a solid entry point. Moffat made a big clean break when he took over, and virtually nothing in Matt Smith’s seasons (until the 50th anniversary show) references anything that had happened between 2005 and 2010. Don’t try jumping on with the introductions of either Capaldi or Whittaker. Both of them, particularly the latter, were saddled with awful material for much of their runs. Capaldi at least had been a Doctor Who nerd since the 70s and knew the show and character better than even the production team did, but the stories he got didn’t live up to their potential.
Having said all that, I do still love the earlier show, even if it’s impossible to reconcile their comparatively small scale with the current epic scope. Once you’ve seen massive UNIT mobilization on the strets of London (Planet of the Dead) one just can’t accept UNIT once being twelve guys in a ragged army base (the Third Doctor’s first few seasons). Once you’ve seen the might of the intelligence services in Torchwood’s later arcs, seeing the C.I.A. represented by two pudgy stooges in Delta and the Bannerman is completely incongruous. And so on. Enjoy the wit and the budget-forced ingenuity of the serials, and savor the old-school big acting. By the time Sylvester McCoy took on the role the budget and camerawork were both VHS-home-movie level, but he’s such an engaging screen presence that you’re swept along anyway.
As others have said, the best place to jump in is 2005. The series ran from 1963 to 1989 and from 2005 to the present. So there was a major break where the producers had to bring in new viewers. Characters and situations from the older shows will be mentioned but there will be explanations of what’s going on so you won’t get lost.
I agree, but there were still a few gems, his major drawback was being saddled with Clara for too long. Her story was over and she should have left for a new companion.
Does everyone else see the similarities between the Cyber-men and the Borg in Star Trek?
There’s a Doctor Who movie I watched many years ago starring Peter Cushing as the Doctor. Must have been made while the show was in its first decade. It’s one of the few movies of his I didn’t like to be honest. However in terms of the TV show I did enjoy David Tennant’s portrayal a lot and his successor Matt Smith. They both had a quirkiness and it felt they really enjoyed being that character while at the same time their companions were formidable too. To me those two made the Doctor fun and they had good storylines which obviously helps. Peter Capaldi in my view got over complicated storylines which meant if you missed a few episodes you’ve missed too many things to understand what and where things have gone.
I agree, but there were still a few gems, his major drawback was being saddled with Clara for too long.
Capaldi got, in my opinion, one of the finest scenes in all of Who-dom: the speech at the end of “The Zygon Inversion.” I still remember watching that for the first time when the episode aired, and staring, blown away, at the TV when the scene was over. He did a magnificent job, and the speech resonates even more now than it did then.
Not to mention the entirety of the episode “Heaven Sent”. So many high-impact scenes, such beautiful shots, a few twists, an epic solo.
Another vote for the two-parter that begins with The Empty Child. The creepiness of the fused gasmasks and the repetition of “Are you my mummy?” still haunts me. And the pay-off gag at the very end was quite amusing.